LogFAQs > #968115310

Coffee Talk

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I have not yet played VA-11 Hall-A, a game I've heard is supposed to be quite good! I own it, so I'll get around to it at some point. I like the idea of mixing drinks and talking to people and experiencing a story that way - the only problem is that I don't drink and I hate bars, so the theming is decidedly not aimed at me. But a coffee shop in a fantasy Seattle? That's right up my alley! I love the setting and the overall vibe of this game, set in an alternate-universe Seattle where werewolves and elves and shit exist, but the rest of this game was disappointing.

The story's about as dry as it gets; characters come into your coffee shop, you make coffee for them, and then they have mundane problems that are eventually resolved by the end of the story. I feel like the writers took 'write what you know' a bit too much to heart; the main character who visits your coffee shop is a writer who's trying to write a novel, but is struggling to write it, and she comes in struggling to write every day until she eventually writes it. It's a bit on the nose. A solid 3/4 of the cast is like this; artistic professionals trying to advance their career and running into problems. The only characters whose arc I thought had some real barbs were the star-crossed elf/succubus lovers whose family doesn't accept them; the rest, not terribly interesting.

The writing's just not very engaging either. Like, there's one particularly weird part of the story where someone claiming to be an alien in a spacesuit shows up and asks for dating advice, and ends up getting on another characters' nerves until they start helping them. See, I think a good writer would use this opportunity to tell us about the other character through the advice they give; I'd have them give (probably bad) advice that reveals insecurities they have or past troubles they've had in their own dating life, and not actually make it about the alien at all. Instead, the script basically turns into a wikihow for actual dating advice - ask her what she likes, offer to buy her a drink, etc - and it's just dull and humorless. The game runs into this problem frequently where it just doesn't quite know how to express its characters' personalities in interesting ways or advance their stories in ways that aren't just them directly telling you what's going on.

It's a shame, because like I said, I do love the vibe of this game, but it kinda spins its wheels and never goes anywhere, aside from an absolutely baffling 11th hour twist that makes no sense and makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Ah well. I'd say the script is a 'good first try', and I do hope they can build upon it in the future.

Transiruby

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I feel kinda bad picking on this game in this section since it's a lesser known one than the others, but this is a cute little pixel-art Metroidvania that I decided to pick up one day after reading a good review of it, and it was kinda lackluster. I liked the art and the music a lot and the simplicity of the game's design and controls were appealing, but it ended up being a little too simple; I think we're past the days where getting a double jump halfway through the game is your most exciting upgrade. The level design feels way too linear for a Metroidvania and I eventually got lost and couldn't even complete the game because I'm not sure what exact point I need to go next that I'm missing. Felt a little bit let down by this one and I was expecting a bit more from the first 30 minutes or so, so here it goes into the rants section. I really wanted to plumb the depths of some obscure indies to put together a good list here and this was one of the casualties where it didn't work out.